The US Senate on Wednesday narrowly preserved the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act by shooting down a bill that denies scientific findings on climate change. That preservation, however, remains tenuous at best.

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7 April 2011 | The US Senate on Wednesday narrowly preserved the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act by shooting down a bill that denies scientific findings on climate change. That preservation, however, remains tenuous at best.

First, the 50/50 split on the Inhofe-McConnell bill means that half of the US Senate actually voted to ignore overwhelming consensus on climate change.

Last night’s vote on four competing EPA amendments showed that 64 senators are willing to vote for legislation that would strip, limit or delay EPA’s rules to curb heat-trapping emissions from stationary sources. But the measures were significantly different from each other, and the ideological and political divisions between their supporters may make it difficult to forge an agreement.

Those bills that garnered the 14 other votes were introduced by conservative Democrats, and would have put a moratorium on the EPAs authority to regulate greenhouse gasses.